An Alliance of Equals

Following on from our EMEA Partner Summit, Alain Valluy EMEA channel sales director at Brocade, talks about the benefits of partnering with Brocade.

One of the questions a challenger brand like Brocade has to be prepared to face is ‘why should anyone choose you over the market leader’? It’s a question I personally enjoy answering, and which came to mind when I heard and saw just why partners continue to choose Brocade at our Partner Summit last week; in Frankfurt Germany.

The old school of thought was that it is ‘easier’ to sell in the market leader. Because, the customer has heard of them; because, there is a level of confidence in buying from the ‘biggest’. And that view was probably true back when channel were predominately pure play resellers, when box shifting sales brought good margins. But today value add is all – and for value, read ‘services’. Revenue relies on services sales, and competition is hotter than ever, with new suppliers coming to market all the time thanks to cloud.

Networking vendors who are committed to channel need to do more than just acknowledge this ongoing shift towards services. Customers are looking for the best-in-class, not the biggest; and vendors are being pushed to deliver solutions that are more open, flexible and cost-effective in a mixed environment. The days of ‘rip-and-replace’ are over, customers can’t afford it anymore. And this is where the channel is key – you are the point of integration: the trusted advisor and expert. It’s channel who can help bring old infrastructure and new together to deliver performance improvements, cut complexity, reduce management and maintenance costs, and enable virtualized environments and cloud. But only if your vendor partner provides the solutions and support you need.

Why Brocade?

Cut through the competition: Brocade solutions enable partners to differentiate themselves and their offerings through unique innovation, proven, market-tested solutions; and smart procurement solutions that open up opportunities for partner sales growth

Understand and evolve: Brocade has a partner revenue-focused program that supports partners in developing their strategies, business models, and sales and services approaches. A combination of education, certification, and solution and services-specific rebate and reward programs, are all targeted to helping our partners maximise revenue opportunities in these high growth areas

Secure long term sales growth: A sale today is just a sale today unless it opens up a new dialogue with the customer. Brocade solutions are designed to be flexible, scalable, and to work in almost any environment seamlessly with the current IT infrastructure. That means partners can offer immediate performance improvements and resolve critical issues now, and provide a viable, solid path to the infrastructure the customer requires in the long term – without a massive CAPEX outlay from the start. It also lays that path for repeat incremental business and services revenues for the partner.

An Alliance of Equals: At Brocade we view our partners as just that –partners. Ours is an Alliance of Equals where the partner can determine their level of engagement, and increase their business with Brocade at a pace that matches their own business plans. Brocade is the expert in developing innovative networking technology; our partners are experts in developing solutions that deliver to the customers’ requirement. Together we are two sides of the same coin.

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